MICHAEL GONZALES
April 22, 2008
San Antonio, Texas
Martha Doty Freeman, Interviewer
San Antonio River Authority Oral History Project, Phase II
This is Martha Doty Freeman. The date is April 2:rt, 2008. I'm interviewing Michael
Gonzales for the San Antonio River Authority 's Oral History Project. The interview is taking
place in San Antonio, Texas.
Give me a little background information.
Born in San Antonio and went to school here, attended Little Flower Elementary School,
Holy Cross high school, then went to San Antonio Junior College, and received an associates
degree in business. I then attended to Our Lady of the Lake University, earned a degree in
biology and chemistry, and soon after that, I went to work for Espy, Huston & Associates, an
environmental consulting finn in Austin, Texas doing environmental fieldwork all across the
country. I visited many different states, the Caribbean and Mexico and Central America.
Was that out of the San Antonio office or Austin?
Out of Austin. I lived in Austin for about three years when I worked for EH&A. That's
where I really got my start in doing environmental work. After that, I consulted on my own
for about a year and a half, and then in 1982 came to work here at the San Antonio River
Authority starting out as a laboratory technician. Shortly after starting at SARA, I was
promoted to field biologist, and then after that, I was selected as manager- actually division
chief, of the Environmental Services Division, as it was referred to back in those days. That
was the mid- to early '80s. SARA then had a reorganization, and I was then made a
manager of Environmental Services Department, and then here recently SARA reorganized
again, and now I'm manager of the Environmental Sciences Department. In the ' 80s, I
returned to school, and earned my master's degree in aquatic biology at Texas State
University- then it was Southwest Texas State University. And that's basically where I am.
The other, I guess, noteworthy thing that people should know is in 1985 I was selected to
participate in Project Ocean Search with the Cousteau Society assisting in coral reef data
collection - I got to do a little scuba diving with the Cousteau team in the Caribbean, which
was a fun summer. I had taken a somewhat extended vacation from the River Authority that
year. Learned a lot and got to experience some marine science. That was in 1985.
It 's like Pinto taking two years to go to South Texas.
Yes But that was a fun experience. One of the things I learned in the consulting business
and in working with the Cousteau folks is the versatility one needs to be successful in the
environmental business. I learned a lot in those efforts. When I came to the River Authority,
I think I brought a lot with me from the different disciplines I worked with in the
environmental consulting world, although I really enjoyed having a steady paycheck once I
started working at SARA. Working as a consultant, it's always feast or famine. San
Antonio's home, so I was glad to be able to move back home and be closer to family and just
stay here and have a steady job.
And it's been a very challenging and rewarding job all along because it's always been
evolving, always been changing and bringing new challenges that kept me interested - I
never got bored here. Early on at SARA when I was a field biologist, I had been used to
traveling all over the country on various projects. I got bored within about six months
because all I ever got to see was the San Antonio River Basin. I saw all of it, learned it very
quickly, but then once I got my promotion to Division Chief, I was able to bring new things,
new parameters, new capabilities, new types of projects to the Environmental Department.
And with that, we grew and developed and were able to keep things interesting and keep
things exciting, and it aided a lot with both my professional development and the
professional development of the Environmental Department staff.
How did you initially get interested in water as afocus?
I became interested biology and chemistry because when I was much younger, I had visited
the rodeo, and saw the Texas Parks and Wildlife exhibit, and I thought, "That's the kind of
work I want to do." I went up to a game warden or one of the Parks and Wildlife staff and
asked them, "What do I need to do to work for Parks and Wildlife?" They said, "You need
to have a degree in biology."
So then I went and earned my degree in biology. I had a very good professor, well, several
good professors; one of them was Delbert Wineger who was a famous Texas botanist.
Through him, I actually grew more into what I wanted to do as far as environmental work,
and I wanted to do it all.
When I finished college with my undergraduate degree, went off to work at Espey, Huston &
Associates. At Espey Huston & Associates, the technicians - environmental technicians,
needed to stay employed by getting assigned onto different engineer's projects. They had
project managers and project engineers who needed a technical staff, and so I saw very early
on that I needed to be versatile - I did terrestrial work, I did vegetation, I did archaeology, I
did a little bit of everything.
But there were more projects that had larger budgets having to do with water. So I saw early
on, I saw the writing on the wall that said "your career is in water." The terrestrial projects
that counted deer and chipmunks and land based animals were very limited. Vegetation
projects dealt with getting a baseline for the areas they were going to strip mine and ruin, and
those were also very limited, but I did see that there was always plenty of work in water
related projects. So I tried to get onto all the projects that were water-related. They kept me
busy, they kept me traveling, and they kept me interested.
My avocation is fishing. That's what got me interested in biology. Ifl'm not fishing, I'm
hunting. So early on, I decided that water's where it's at, and there was a good career in
water. People need to drink water; people need to flush toilets, so I learned early on that
there was a future in water. That's when I started focusing in aquatics. I started signing on
for every field project that I could in the consulting world that would keep me busy, and most
of them dealt with water.
I was also very capable in the field in that I could handle a four-wheel drive vehicle, I could
drive tractors and earth-moving equipment. I could also handle boats, back up a trailer,
launch and retrieve watercraft, weld and make mechanical repairs on equipment. So a lot of
these project engineers started looking to make sure I was on their projects. I became very
valuable to them, and a lot of them needed me in the field to hold their hand, so there were
more opportunities to for me to grow and develop.
When I decided to go for a master's degree, I was already here at the River Authority, and I
was already engaged in water, so to make sure I had better credentials in water, I worked
towards a master's degree in aquatic biology.
How did you find out that there was a position available here? How did you make that
connection?
I had left Austin, moved back to San Antonio, and while I was in the consulting business, I
made connections, with numerous PhD types and professors, many of these were professors
at universities across the country, and they needed somebody that could go out that was not
tied down to the school calendar and that could go out and direct field data collection efforts.
So for about a year, maybe a year and a half, I was doing a lot of field work on contract basis
for some of these professors who were basically stuck at their universities, could not go out
to different parts of the country and collect data and/or direct the fieldwork. I was finding
plenty of work; that was during the Carter administration. Reagan got elected, and all the
environmental work dried up. When Reagan got elected, he was tired of looking at redwood
trees, so all the environmental work dried up, and that's when I looked for a real job, so
ended up here at the River Authority.
Saw an ad in the paper, applied for it, and apparently my resume impressed enough people
that SARA hired me.
And who was - what was the structure of the River Authority at that time as it pertained to
your particular interest?
Well, at the time, SARA had a laboratory, and I could do lab work, had been doing lab work
in the past with consultants. Sometimes - I was the closest thing Esp~ Huston & Associates
had to a chemist, they had a pretty nice laboratory that didn't do a wh~le lot oflab work, but
every now and then, they needed some lab work done so then I would do it. Sometimes I
would set up a lab on a bed of a pickup truck or in an old school bus or in a bam to do certain
analyses like sodium absorption ratios, for soil testing characterization, or water testing of
different types. I had that experience, and they had a lab here at the River Authority, there
was an opening, I applied for it. I was hoping to get a job doing fieldwork, but I qualified for
the lab work, they hired me, and I've been here ever since. That's where I basically got my
foot in the door, hoping that something else would open up.
There was another position soon after I came here to the River Authority at the Lower
Colorado River Authority opened up needing a field biologist, so the field person here at the
time, a man by the name of Ron Chandler, he was the field biologist here at SARA, and I had
just moved here from Austin and at the time I wanted to move back to Austin, so we both
applied for that job; he got it. When he left to go to Austin, I was promoted to his old
position as a field biologist. Then after I was doing fieldwork here at the River Authority for
a few months, the position for the manager of the Environmental Department opened up.
With all my experience in the consulting business, I was leap-frogged over some people that
had more tenure for the management position. I don't think I was here more than thre~ years
before I got that promotion to where I was actually managing the division.
That was about the time the River Authority was growing a lot, wasn 't it?
Yes, SARA was growing- well, not growing the way we grew later. We were growing, but
it was very limited in that at the time, the Environmental Department, we were expected to -
through fees for services we did, were expected to be able to pay our own way, so to speak,
and generate revenue that would help keep the laboratory open and keep our field projects
going. So it was difficult in those days. The engineering department was growing in that
they had projects with the river improvements, I think back then it was the San Antonio
Channel Improvement Project, where all this work right here in front of the River Authority
was being done. So they were growing. Our wastewater treatment plants were growing at
that time, and our Environmental Services Department, or division back then, was growing
very slowly in that we were trying to acquire more contracts for people to come use our
laboratory and field services.
So how did you go about generating contracts?
Well, that was hard in those days because I was not allowed to advertise. The general
manager at the time did not want us to compete with private business. So basically by word
of mouth, by going out and making some visits and handshakes and trying to meet people
and tell them, "Hey, we've got a laboratory; we can do some work for you."
Mostly we were trying to target municipalities, people that had permits for wastewater
discharges, people that had to comply with TCEQ and EPA regulations at that time. So any
time we got to review somebody's permit, we also sent them a little brochure that we made
up and our lab fee schedule, saying we can do some lab work for you and/or do some
sampling and testing or whatever else you need. It was very difficult because we were not
allowed to advertise or compete with private labs
There was a group at the time of area wastewater treatment plant operators. I think they were
called the Armadillos or something, it was their nickname. But our - the River Authority's
wastewater operators were members of that organization. The other organizations were
complaining about needing testing done, and there weren't very many good, reliable labs.
They kind of sold our services for us, and word sort of spread that we were able to provide
these types of services.
I noticed that it said that you-all did provide services to other water districts.
Yes. Any time we could.
How did you get your foot in the door that way? Because I would have assumed that they
had their own labs.
Some do and some don't. The Nueces River Authority to the south of us, for example, has
been around all the same years SARA has, and does not have a laboratory, they never have.
They just figured it's easier just to send their work either to us or to somebody else, and we
do some work for them. Edwards Aquifer Authority, does not have a laboratory either, we
do some work for the Edwards Aquifer Authority. Most small municipalities can't afford to
maintain a laboratory. It used to be that whoever was running the wastewater treatment plant
in some of these small towns that person was also the dogcatcher and that person also did
their own water testing.
Back then, the State was very loose on what they required of water testing, and I think a lot
of it was done by what we call the "graphite method," where it was just pencil whipped.
They would fill in their data, and they wouldn't really complete the test. They would just
have basically what looked like a laboratory and a few instruments just whenever the
inspector came along. I think eventually the TCEQ got wind of it and started requiring that
all the water testing has to be done by a laboratory that is inspected by the TCEQ on a regular
basis. So more and more of these dogcatchers were relieved that they didn't have to do the
lab work anymore, and they began sending the testing work over here to SARA, and we
started doing more and more of the lab work for them.
So was there a point at which TCEQ and NEP A really began to play into the demand for
more professional services?
Yes there was, but it took about 20 years to get it going. Just this past February - the TCEQ
fmally set up an accreditation program, and we received our accreditation. But way back
when, 20 years ago or so, we were pushing for laboratory accrediation, TCEQ was pushing
for it, - but there was a lot of opposition in the State Legislature. We saw the need for more
professionalism in the industry - little by little the TCEQ was requiring more and more
training of wastewater operators that were doing lab work at their own laboratories. Through
the years it has evolved to where we are today- now it's a whole lot better for a small
municipality to send their samples to us instead of trying to maintain their own lab on site.
Labs are very expensive to build and to operate and maintain, and SARA has been able to
keep our lab open. Many municipalities take advantage of that. Now that we are an
accredited laboratory, all municipalities are going to be required to comply with the NELAP
accreditation standards -
What is it called?
NELAP, National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program. That's the program
that the State has now that Labs, municipalities and permit holders have to comply with. Say,
the City of Devine, this is an example, decide they want to do their own testing for their own
water and wastewater, they can build their own little laboratory, and they can have it right
next to their treatment plant without having to be accredited. But they can only do the testing
for themselves; they can't test for other clients. But when the TCEQ auditors and inspectors
come down, their lab had better comply with the NELAP standard. Compliance is very
difficult to do without professional laboratory staff.
The SARA ESD lab already that NELAP laboratory. The Environmental Sciences
Department has 23 people on staff. When I became the manager of the department, there
was myself and two: one person in the field, one person in the lab, there were three of us.
Now there are 23 all together, so we've grown a lot over the last 26 years that I've been here.
But the- small municipalities now, it's actually to their benefit nowadays to bring their
samples to the SARA lab. This new law goes into effect July 15
\ this summer, all data that is
turned in to either the State of Texas or to the EPA has to be - any sampling and testing or
data analysis has to be conducted by a NELAP-accredited laboratory. Right now there are
only two river authorities in the state of Texas that have this accreditation: San Antonio
River Authority and Lower Colorado River Authority. Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority
has undergone their audit, they have not actually received their certificate, but they' ll
probably have it in the next month or two.
So does that mean that your clients tend to be pretty much just within your geographical
region or watershed? Do you see that happening increasingly as more and more -
No. Originally, we were limited to our four-county district. Then we spread out to the
natural drainage basin of the San Antonio River, which is a little bit larger; that touches on 13
counties. But then we received requests from some private industries down in the Rio
Grande Valley, City of Laredo, City ofDel Rio, and National Park Service at Amistad
needing some testing. The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, some of the Hill Country
municipalities have also come to us for testing and analysis. City of Bandera is another one.
The Upper Guadalupe River Authority, they've got a little laboratory up there, and from time
to time they've needed some assistance - either some of their equipment failed, and they
needed to outsource some work to SARA, we've been servicing a lot of Central and South
Texas through the years, and we still have a number of clients that are outside of our district.
But that doesn't matter to us; we accept the samples wherever they come from. We figure
that any revenue we can generate, that' s a little bit less of a burden on the taxpayers.
So if I were a potential client, how would I make the decision that I was going to go to you­all
instead of to LCRA?
Mostly it's convenience; which ever laboratory is more convenient to get to. Laboratory
clients north of New Braunfels will probably going to go to LCRA; clients south ofNew
Braunfels will probably come here. It just depends which is more convenient. There are a
lot ofthe municipalities in Central and South Texas that come to San Antonio for supplies.
While they're sending somebody into town, they can also drop off the samples at the SARA
lab. So it's mostly just a matter of convenience. Price-wise, SARA might be a little bit
cheaper than LCRA on most analyses. The clients that can make a choice one way or the
other, we hope they come to us because we provide better service.
It 's interesting to think about San Antonio and historically how it was the regional trade
center for livestock and agricultural products and then oil and gas and now water in the
same kind of you know, keeping those contacts out there in the same way, just for a different
resource.
Yes that is right.
What do you suppose was the reason behind the Legislature's kind of dragging their feet on
all of this? You 've mentioned that -
I think the private industry laboratories and the consulting engineering community did not
want to see that level of scrutiny on the data that they were working with. I suspect they
wanted a lot more latitude on what they could do with the data and what data indicated, and
whether it was useful or not. I think it helped a lot of them dodge the bullet as far as permit
requirements and getting by with spending less money on a wastewater treatment facility. I
suspect that was part of it.
I believe what drove the effort the other way was once a lot of these facilities, treatment
plants, studies, whatever, were called into question and ended up in litigation, the lawyers
were fmding out that the data that they were using was suspect all along. So we believe that
because of so much of the litigation that transpired over the years revealed that the data was
incorrect, questionable or not validated. I suspect that since the Legislature is made up of
mostly lawyers, they realized that the data's got to be bulletproof. Statewide laboratory
accrediation was eventually passed through the legislation.
Texas is about 20 years behind all the other states when it comes to environmental issues. As
an example, Texas is still using BOD and TSS, which is biochemical oxygen demand; it's a
test they use for testing wastewater treatment plants, and also TSS, total suspended solids.
These are two tests that they determine the quality of the effluent after it's been treated to
determine how safe it is to discharge to a river is. Well, Texas is still requiring those old
analytical methods after all these years. Other states have gone on to other more rapid, more
defensible methods of testing water, but the State ofTexas is still requiring old methods.
That's just one example of how far we are behind the times. We're also - 20 years later,
we're just now having accreditation program compared to the other states. So it's happening
slowly, but finally Texas is getting with the environmental programs.
So where is the River Authority in that process? Are you-all sort of taking a leadership role
Oh, yes.
'7
- and initiating these different kinds of tests?
As soon as any kind of new regulations or protocols come out or either the stream standards
or the rules that we have to operate by, we're very quick to adopt them and adapt to them and
put them into our program. We consider ourselves proactive and leaders in this regard, we
always have been. We haven't waited until somebody holds a gun to our head and says we
have to comply with a new regulation or protocol. We see the benefits in the future. In the
long term, we know that if we get on the bandwagon now, it'll be so much easier down the
road later; and if we don' t, we may never be able to stay ahead of the curve.
Catch up.
Yes. We need to be able to show our customers and clients that we're out there, we're
complying, and if there are new regulations that are imposed on them, we will also help them
comply for the betterment of the environment. And it's been working.
I guess the change in regulations poses a certain kind of a challenge. Are there other - have
conditions changed within the watershed itself in such a way that there are challenges that
you didn 't face in the past?
Oh, yes. The watershed is developed, Bexar County is rapidly growing, and it's almost all
concrete now. So because of the way San Antonio has developed there are more people
drinking water, more people flushing toilets, more water that has to be treated, and returned
to the San Antonio River. Because of additional return flow, the San Antonio River has more
water in it that it would naturally, so that changes the downstream environment. The
increases in water changes the whole river ecosystem.
At the same time, all the development in Bexar County and the upper watershed, increases
impervious cover, rooftops, asphalt, parking lots, whatever, so we have increased peak runoff.
When it rains, we see an increase in the volume of water not only moving downriver but
moving down the river faster. The increased volumes and velocities change the whole river
ecosystem as well. So yes, there are a lot of challenges to address and in some instances
quantify; there's a lot to do.
SARA is involved with water as it falls over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, we're
engaged in that to a limited extent. We're engaged in what happens with the aquifer itself,
either doing analysis for the Edwards Aquifer Authority or reviewing habitat conservation
plans, and developing recovery plans. We're engaged in that water when it goes through the
aquifer. Spring flows and the endangered species that are involved in that. I sit on the state
science committee that deals with those issues. Then we have the river and the water used by
municipalities, the water is developed, used, treated and then discharged back to the river.
We are also involved with the rain that falls on the cities that washes downstream. The entire
reach of the San Antonio River, we're monitoring and doing studies on that for a variety of
issues, concerns and reasons. SARA keeps track of that whole river system as well. The
river discharges into the San Antonio Bay. SARA is now involved with bay and estuary
studies because whatever management regimes that we do in San Antonio for the future are
going to affect what happens to the San Antonio Bay ecosystem, whether it is a high peak
flow moving too fast or an overabundance of fresh water.
Most people along the coast think that the more fresh water entering the bays and estuaries
the better. But scientists know that there can be too much of a good thing. So we need to
watch what's happening in the bays and estuaries. So from my position, I've seen SARA
grow from where all we cared about was our little four-county district. Now we're involved
with everything from above the recharge zone and the catchment area of the Edwards Plateau,
all the way through the aquifer, all the way through the cities, all the way down the San
Antonio River to San Antonio Bay and then beyond. SARA is involved because of whatever
water resource management regime we plan for the next 50 years; San Antonio Bay will be
affected. The San Antonio River goes out into San Antonio Bay, takes a right, goes down the
Lydia Ann Channel, then takes a left and goes out between the Port Aransas jetties.
I personally have a vested interest because that's where I fish, and I've also got a house in
Port Aransas. So I'm watching water from the rainfall up in the Hill Country all the way out
to the jetties, I pay attention to what's happening to those water resources. So SARA has a
much larger scope of responsibility, where we test, where we're monitoring and how we
manage water. Through the years we've also engaged consulting firms, and universities to
assist us. SARA is engaged with the University of Texas and also Texas A&M to help with
some of the studies that we are involved in.
Do you actually test out at Lydia Ann Channel?
No, no. Well, I personally do. I go out there and catch the fish and test how good they taste.
But no, we don't have any programs out there. We do have programs in San Antonio Bay.
We're working with the Blucher Institute out of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, NOAA and
TCOONS. Anyway, we've got a couple of institutes we work with, and we contract with
them to - they operate some monitoring stations down in San Antonio Bay - because we
want to make sure that the data is consistent and valid. It would be cost prohibitive for
SARA to try to develop a staff to do coastal work, so it is more efficient to contract with an
organization that's down there already. University of Texas is doing an estuary response
projects for us on San Antonio Bay.
Just south of San Antonio Bay, that's where the San Antonio River makes that right tum, and
who happens to be there every winter? The Whooping Crane, which is the poster child for
the endangered species act. Whatever we do up here in San Antonio can potentially affect
that whooping crane and other endangered species associated with the Edwards Aquifer.
SARA has not identified any endangered species living in the San Antonio River; that
doesn't mean they don't live there; we just haven't found them yet. I know one of our
previous general managers was concerned that I was going to find something. We did fmd a
log perch; we did fmd some darters which were never found before in the San Antonio River.
SARA biologists collected those species. Some folks are concerned we may find a blue
sucker or a Cagle's Map Turtle, because if those species are discovered in the San Antonio
River, some issues may be raised. Currently the Cagle's map turtle and the Blue sucker are
not on the endangered species list, but they may soon be listed.
0
Cagle's is right up there on the Guadalupe, isn 't it?
It's on the Guadalupe, there's no reason why it can't go down the Guadalupe to the
confluence then turn and swim up the San Antonio River. There have been other species that
we find here that we suspect have come from the Guadalupe. At one time, the City of San
Antonio's wastewater discharge was so foul that nothing could survive swimming up the San
Antonio River. Nowadays, we've got a very clean stream; in fact, two weeks ago, first time
since I've been here, the San Antonio River met the State's stream standard for bacteria.
At what point?
In all four counties.
(End ofTape 1, Side 1. Beginning ofTape 1, Side 2.)
SARA maintains a web site where post monitoring data on a weekly basis so that if anybody
wants to go canoeing or doing any activities on the San Antonio River, they can check the
web site and find out what the bacteria levels are and whether or not the flows are safe
enough to go canoeing or paddling. So now the San Antonio River's pretty much in
compliance with the State's stream standards.
Someone I was talking to was talking about the possibility of the large-scale reuse of treated
water and the impact that might have on the river on downstream because it would decrease
stream flow, I guess.
Matter of fact, I come from a meeting this morning where I was talking with some of the
other managers about that, that people are concerned about reusing all the water and not
allowing enough to go downstream. Well, I think a lot of that concern comes from people
who live downstream thinking that more is better. Even if we reuse a lot of that water, a
natural river needs to be able to fluctuate. It has to have its minimum flows, many times
spawning and/or different kinds of reaction for species are triggered by changes in flow.
Viability?
Yes. In other words, the critters out there in the river react to different regimes in the flow.
So a river needs to have to go all the way down, sometimes to minimum base flow. That is
how much water a river needs just to keep an ecosystem alive. Then a river may rise up to its
base flow, comes up to - maybe full bank flow, over bank flow, which goes out beyond the
1 00-year watershed or 1 00-year floodplain. An over banking river fertilizes and provides
moisture out on the flood plain, and then it comes back down to its - so a river's got to be
fluctuating all the time on a cyclic basis in order to sustain a balanced ecosystem.
So if we have all this effluent going into the river as it is right now, there are over 130
million gallons a day going into the San Antonio River from the city of San Antonio, so it's
always running at bank flow. The river has a more water than it needs all the time. So we're
1()
not seeing that variation or fluctuating flows. We see it at full bank flow, and then we see it
during a flood event over bank flow, but we do not see those minimum base flows or at least
we rarely see them.
Two summers ago, we saw the San Antonio River go down to about 250 CFS down near
Goliad, which is the lowest I'd ever seen it in all my years here. So it went down, but how
often does it go down that low? I think reusing some of the water could be a good thing. It'd
give the river downstream a little bit more of that flexibility, having those changes, the
seasonal cyclic changes from time to time which will strengthen the aquatic -not just the
aquatic, but the entire ecosystem of the river valley.
I know some people might have some concerns about reusing too much water; I personally
don't think that's going to be an issue because every time it rains in San Antonio, San
Antonio floods, a major wall of water moves downstream, and San Antonio Bay gets a major
freshet - a freshwater inflow to the bay. Some people think that, well, we have to have this
constant flow of freshwater in San Antonio Bay. I say no, that's not what drives the bay
ecosystem. The bay is driven by these seasonal pulses of freshwater, large volumes that
pulse out into a freshet.
Every time we have floods in San Antonio, San Antonio Bay is going to get its freshet. The
bay doesn't have to have a freshet every year and doesn't have to have one every month. But
as long as it gets a major freshet once every two to three years, the bay will be fine. That
really allows for more water that we could use and reuse in San Antonio without hurting San
Antonio Bay. But I don't think enough people understand river ecology and bay ecology;
they just have this kneejerk reaction thinking more is better, and they're trying to control
Mother Nature, not necessarily work with her. There are only a certain amount of variables
that can be changed.
San Antonio does not have any major darns on the river. The only major dam we have is
Medina Darn. The other ones are very small, and they don't really hold that much water
back. So every time San Antonio floods, the city sends all the water downstream, and almost
all of it ends up out in the San Antonio Bay, so I don't think we're going to hurt the
ecosystem by reusing some water.
Were you involved in the Applewhite Reservoir planning?
No, not really. That was mostly our engineering department and our - I guess at the time
what we might have had was a Water Resource Department. That was more political than
anything else, so I was not really involved in that.
So in a project like that, would there normally be a lot of conversation between the
engineering arm and the environmental arm or ...
Back then there wasn't, but there would be now. We've had a different organization- I
think we've had some changes in attitude here at the River Authority to where nowadays all
projects are required to have an environmental review. SARA staff does not move forward
1 1
on any projects unless they go over my desk. We've got an environmental review process set
up in the River Authority, and now I'm pretty much involved in almost all projects, I should
say most projects at levels where I need to be, not in all of them. Sometimes in the past staff
would not bring me in to a project until it's too little, too late, but that's the fault of the
project manager. But now we do try to get engaged and involved in all the projects, where
we can.
You mentioned that when you came, there were two other people.
Right.
Who were they, do you remember their names?
Let me think. Steve San Miguel was working in the laboratory, and Ernest Moran in the field,
I had hired Ernest to take my place. When I was promoted from field biologist to the
manager, I hired Ernest Moran. And he's still with me; he's still ramrodding the field work.
He's been here, I guess - I know he's been here over 20 years, maybe three years less than I
have, but he's still with us.
Now, is this the same lab that was used for materials testing?
No, no.
So there were two separate labs?
Yeah. Materials testing lab was under the Engineering Department, and they tested concrete
and soil. We tested water and wastewater and surface water.
Did you coordinate in any way?
No.
There was no overlap at all?
No.
Okay. Were there any usual manmade or natural events that you found particularly
challenging to deal with during the time you were here?
Well, let's see. We had several train derailments that we've been involved with helping to
quantify the damage and in some cases try to do what we could to minimize the threat to
public health and also minimize the threat to the environment.
When SARA and the City of San Antonio built the tunnels underneath the city, there was
concern about that water going stagnant causing odor problems and becoming anoxic. The
concern was that if we did have some rain, it would displace the tunnel water and push it out
into the river, potentially causing problems.
1'1
So we did an extended study on the tunnel and river system -we tried to simulate tunnel
conditions in our laboratory. We had to build some special incubators, and then we took
samples of river water and tunnel water and subjected them to the biochemical oxygen
demand test but not just only for the five days that it's normally done, we did it for up to, I
think, 90 days to test if that water would be ok- if the tunnel is full of water for 90 days and
was sitting down there getting stagnant, what would happen to that water as it was displaced
and moved out into the river? So we conducted a series of tests to determine whether or not
that water would actually be a problem after that discharge.
And I assume that when the tunnel was being planned, nobody thought about this, or at what
point did somebody say, "Say, what about that water that's in the tunnel"?
I don't know who thought about that, but somebody came to me back then, one of the
engineers I believe, and said, "What about if the water stayed in this tunnel, would it go
anoxic?" And I said, "Probably, yes, it would become stagnant." The engineer asked, "How
bad would it get?" I said, "I don't know, but we could set up some tests to simulate tunnel
conditions and then figure out how much dissolved oxygen would remain after so many
days."
So we did it with a 5-day test, a 1 0-day test, 20 days, 30 days, and 60 days out, or 40 days, 60
days, then 90 days out to see how much dissolved oxygen would remain in there and would
that tunnel water be viable. We concluded that after six weeks, it would be anoxic. But the
tunnel had such a cool temperature, and by the time the water was displaced and was
expelled out into the river, it was agitated enough that it would really not cause a problem.
We tried to actually go out and sample the tunnel water itself on that same regime, 60, 90
days, we had the field staff go out and try to sample the tunnel and try to get in-situ data -
and actually the tunnel behaved a lot better than what our experiments in the laboratory had
indicated, actually the dissolved oxygen stayed in the tunnel a lot longer. I think it had to do
with the large volume that was there.
And we also suspected, but we never were able to prove it, but the tunnel water moves like a
lake. A river moves, longitudinally, a river goes upstream and downstream. A lake, however,
moves up and down, vertically. So we were thinking that there was enough volume and that
the tunnel also had two vertical shafts and there was enough movement within the tunnel
itself, cold water sinking to the bottom and the warm water rising to the top, that there was
enough action, agitation in the tunnel that kept it from actually going anoxic, at least that's
what our suspicions were.
And because our testing of the actual tunnel water itself was in situ, we never did come up
with those low dissolved oxygen levels that we found in the laboratory. So that was kind of a
learning experience for us; we did some experiments thinking the worst, but actually it turned
out better. But nobody thought about tunnel water moving within the tunnel itself. But it
was something that we learned, it was a new and different type of challenge.
Have there been other projects that particularly stand out in your mind?
Other projects, well, things that we've been involved with, in the '90s, I guess 1990, the State
Legislature - well, actually late ' 80s, they passed Senate Bill 818, the Clean Rivers Program,
so we became involved in the Clean Rivers Program. Working with the State, set up a
monitoring network across the state, and SARA implemented that project in the San Antonio
River Basin; we were the basin administrator for that project. That gave us a big shot in the
arm. It gave us some funding to start our monitoring programs. We have continued that
program.
We were involved in some high strength wastewater studies where we were testing the
discharge, the wastewater discharge from restaurants to see if those that were on a septic
tanks were aproblem - the State contracted with us to do that study. We did our first what
we call our ecological assessment of the San Antonio River, the Urban Reach. We went
from Brackenridge Park down to Espada Park trying to document the biota of the San
Antonio River; that was in the early '80s. We received special funding for that project.
We got involved with the first total maximum daily load study in the state and completed one
on Salado Creek and then have been working ever since on other total maximum daily load
studies with the State. We completed the first watershed protection plan in an urban area for
the State of Texas. That was completed, two years ago. We're still working on
implementing that plan, by the way. We're trying to develop one now for Salado Creek and
for the San Antonio River below Bexar County. Those have been very successful projects.
In that project, we managed to get the river reach up here in San Antonio compliant with the
State stream standard. We're almost there. We convinced the city of San Antonio to assist,
and we got- the zoo was the last major discharge to the river to participate. Lone Star
Brewery doesn't discharge, CPS doesn't discharge anymore. Pearl Brewery is not there,
Union Stockyard doesn't discharge; they've all moved away or closed. So the last discharge
to the upper river was the San Antonio Zoo. What they're doing now, the City is going to be
putting a disinfection system on the end of the zoo so any fecal material that was being
washed into the river from the zoo is now going to be disinfected before it goes to the river.
It's a major project that we've been involved with.
So what 's the structure of how these special projects occur? Is it legislatively driven, or is it
driven within the River Authority?
Sometimes - well, Senate Bill 818 gave us the marching orders for Clean Rivers Program,
it's a monitoring program we do basin-wide. The Clean Water Act dictated and actually the
Sierra Club through the EPA about, non point source pollution. The State leads the effort,
then the State contracts with us and other river authorities and water districts to help do some
of these studies. They can't do it all, so they' ll contract with SARA. So sometimes it's
need-based; in order to keep them out of litigation, they' ll contract with us to move forward
on some of these studies.
Sometimes an agency just wants to have something - wants to learn something. National
1 A
Park Service contracted with us a few years ago to do a fish survey and document the fish
that are in the San Antonio Mission National Historic Park, in or adjacent to it. So we went
out there and collected all kinds of fish, and identified them, cataloged them, and wrote up a
report for them. This year the National Park service is requesting SARA to do a year-long
study on water quality in the National Park. Many times some of these contracts come up or
they send out an RFP, request for proposal, so we'll submit a proposal or apply for a grant
and say, "We're going to do this kind of a study." And then if we get the funding, then we'll
do the project.
Do you have any working relationship with SAWS?
Oh, yes.
What does that consist of in terms of your division?
Well, SAWS partners with us on this watershed protection plan. They're partnering with us
right now on an education effort we have on the River Walk area we're going to be doing
over the next three years, so they work with us as partners. SAWS has used our services in
the past to either go out and do some field collections, do some testing, or do some studies
for them, and also sometimes we do lab work for them. So we've always had a good
working relationship with SAWS. We do - pretty much if they need help, we'll help them.
In facts, our labs have been collaborating on this NELAP accreditation. We got our
accreditation, SAWS is working towards theirs, so we've been collaborating on certain forms
and certain structures. But what we would like to do is, even though we're all getting the
same accreditation, we'd like to be able to use similar methods and similar equipment to
where if for some reason our lab is down, we can outsource to SAWS and they can outsource
to us, reciprocate. We want to develop some redundancy to where we've always got a
laboratory that's viable.
We also see that as a public need; For example, the Metropolitan Health District has a
laboratory, and they do some water testing there, but if there's ever any kind of a spill or
natural disaster or something like that and water needs to be tested rapidly for public health
purposes, we've got that redundancy built in.
City of Del Rio, they had major flooding, their drinking water system was out of compliance.
Well, the nearest laboratory they used to use was the Metropolitan Health Department. Well,
Metropolitan Health Department only works four days a week, so they would have to wait ­well,
they work five days a week, I should say, but they only accept samples four days a
week because if they accept samples on a Friday, that means someone has to work Saturday.
Well, our laboratory works seven days a week. We're not open, but they work seven days a
week. We accept samples on Saturdays and Sundays with notification that they're coming.
We will work through the weekend; every weekend we've got somebody on staff. So we're
more available for those natural disasters so we were able to do the testing for City of Del
Rio in advance of waiting for the health department to open up on Monday, and then -
1'
because it's a 24-hour test.
Corpus Christi had their problems last summer, and although we didn't test any of their
water- well, we did test some on behalf of the State of Texas because they wanted a third,
non-biased lab to do some testing, and we did some of that. But we were available for them;
a lot ofthe labs are not available.
So if there 's a major flood in the watershed, I mean, weather predicting has its problems, do
you try and get out ahead of a potentially disastrous situation or - at what point do you come
into play and how would your services be called on?
Well, there's two ways we get involved in storm water. Sometimes if we see a storm coming
and we're in the middle of, say, a TMDL assessment-
What 's that?
Total maximum daily load. We want to know how much of a pollutant load is carried in
storm water runoff. We've got to get out there ahead ofthe storm and catch samples as the
water rises and then as the water falls on the hydrograph. So we will send a team out to work
in the rain all night, if necessary, to get that kind of data when we have a contract for that
kind of study. We have done that in the past.
The other thing is is that if a major flood comes and, say, inundates a city's water treatment
facility or their wells get contaminated or their wastewater treatment plant gets inundated and
they need some testing to make sure that they're back on line, that everything's working
properly, they may contact SARA for lab support. We always try to accommodate clients
that way.
Some times, like in the instance of the City of Del Rio or some of those other small
municipalities, Eagle Pass I think was another one that we extended our services to. We have
contacted the city manager or whoever's on staff, that our lab's available; if you need us,
give us a call. We have done that kind of outreach from time to time. We try to make sure
that they know that we're always available. A lot of these smaller cities, like Del Rio, have a
small laboratory that takes care of their analytical requirements. But when their laboratory is
eight feet underwater, it doesn't help them out, so we try to provide some support where we
can to the other municipalities.
Thinking back to when it was a division of three, where were you located at that point?
Where Human Resources is now. That was the laboratory at one time.
Tell me ...
You go out this hall to the extreme north end of the building, which was the laboratory. The
wing on that side was not built in those days, the southern wing. We only had the northern
wing, that is where the lab was located. Then the laboratory was right here where this room
is, we'd actually be in the laboratory right now. The laboratory took up this area here. Then
a couple of years ago we moved to the new laboratory over on Euclid Street. So this is my
third laboratory here with the River Authority; we were back there, then we were here, now
we were over there at the Environmental Center.
So the one at the end of the hall was there in '82? You came in '82?
Yeah, I started in '82, it was already there.
And what did that lab consist of?
Back then, we were doing biochemical action demand, total suspended solids, nitrogen
phosphorus, we were doing fecal coliform analysis, and chlorophyll pheophytin and then the
BOD test. The new parameter we acquired back then was a total organic carbon analyzer.
That's the machine that should be used for testing wastewater instead of BOD because we
get our results instantaneously; BOD you get it five days later.
And when did you get that equipment in?
We got that equipment, in ' 84, about that. We also expanded from just fecal coliform to
doing fecal coliform, fecal streptococcus, and then we also started later on doing total
coliform. Now we've even added e. coli, heterotrophic plate counts; bacteria section has
grown quite a bit from back in those days. We have seen considerable change over time.
So how do you make decisions about what to add on in terms of equipment or services?
It depends on the demands needed by municipalities and other agencies, if they need certain
tests done. We've added things like oil and grease, and other tests that the State is requiring
for monitoring programs. Things that are an environmental concern like heavy metals and
organics, utilities are starting to test for it, agencies have those needs, and that's what we add
to our laboratory capabilities. We do have capabilities now for heavy metals; we've done oil
and grease. We're getting ready to- or we'd like to add in the near future analytical
capabilities for mercury. We've gone to a new method of chlorophyll pheophytin now that's
being added to the laboratory's repertoire of things we can do.
So it just depends on what the needs are out there, the environmental needs. We also look at
what environmental problems are plaguing the watershed. Selenium is a problem in Braunig
and Calaveras Lakes, so that's one of the things we're starting to do now. Lead, Fort Sam
Houston had some problems with lead so we started looking at lead different ways. The old
Kelly Air Force Base had some organic contamination. PCBs is another issue. If it's not
cost-effective for us to do those parameters ourselves, we will outsource the work, but it's
things we have engaged in over the years.
And did you depend on contracts to help pay for new equipment that you needed, or how did
you make the- because I assume the equipment's pretty costly?
1'7
It's costly, and we tried to make an argument saying that, you know, these are the things that
we need in this basin. We did have one of our board members, Mr. Johnson, and also
Mr. Turner, J.C. Turner from Wilson County, that they were very big into the environment,
and they wanted to see us do more. One time at a board meeting, Mr. Johnson said, "Is this
all you all can test for? Is there anything else we're not testing for?" I replied, "Mr. Johnson,
there's at least 120 other priority pollutants out there that we don't test for." That started the
ball rolling to help get us grow and get the equipment we need to start expanding our testing
capabilities.
We have a couple of programs right now; one is called "Priority Pollutant Planning." The
purpose is to track harmful constituents in our creeks and rivers - I believe the list might be
over 200 by now, of constituents that are out in the environment that we know are harmful
either to humans or to the environment. There are carcinogens, endocrine disruptors or toxic
compounds. And somebody needs to be checking on some of them.
Now, not all the priority pollutants are problematic in the San Antonio basin, but we do need
to be checking for those that might be of concern and testing for those. Starting in September,
we're going to be starting a study of the sediments in the rivers to see what kind of heavy
metals are present. This is something that SARA has not done before. We've supported
studies before under other programs, we funded the USGS to test some of those, but that
testing is not as intensive as we would like, so we're going to try to step it up ourselves.
The other program we have is Emerging Contaminants. This is something that's new. You
might have seen something in the media about this last week or two. We've been studying
this since last summer. But things like DEET, people will wash off their bodies', is in insect
repellant, and caffeine, Prozac, estrogen, those types of personal-care products and
pharmaceuticals that go through our bodies or wash off our bodies, go into the wastewater
system. Emerging contaminants are not treated by the conventional wastewater treatment
facilities and then go out with the effluent into the environment and in the rivers.
Some people call them microconstituents because they're out there in the part per trillion,
part per billion ranges, and it is unknown if they're actually causing problems in the
environment. It had been reported that certain endocrine disrupters and are causing male fish
to have female tendencies. Researchers are concerned about how that might affect humans
as they drink that water later. Scientists not sure about potential impacts because it is
unknown if it's good or bad for the environment, we don't know if there may be synergistic
effects with other constituents that are out there, the half-life or how long the constituents
may persist, we just don't know.
Most of the research is being done at the PhD level at Universities around the country, and
before we get engaged, we want to know, what the research indicates, and determine where
and how SARA may be engaged in the future?" We see these things out on the horizon, and
try to keep abreast of what's happening, read the literature, and stay informed. If emerging
contaminants ever become a problem, SARA would have some sort of an idea of what the
game plan's going to be.
We also stay in close contact with SAWS about this because they have a big wastewater
lQ
treatment plant. SAWS also has a laboratory that can also collaborate with SARA on some
of the analysis that might be needed in the future.
How have you seen the equipment change during the time you 've been here in terms of
sophistication?
Much of the new laboratory instrumentation has become computerized and automated, as an
example; we used to do anions the old wet chemistry method with glass test tubes and
beakers. Now we have a computerized analyzer and we just inject a sample into or put
several samples on carousels, and the instrument operates automatically. The carousel serves
the samples to the instrument, each water sample is tested as it passes through, and the
computer screen displays the data. We used to have to do them all one at a time with old wet
chemistry methods.
,
Current technology allows tor simultaneous operation of two or more automated instruments
we can have one analyst working at a computer, setting up this instrument, turning it on,
letting it operate on its own. The analyst can then set up a second or thlrd instrument and
have all the instruments operating at once.
(End of Tape 1, Side 2. Beginning of Tape 2, Side 1.)
SARA laboratory analytical accuracy and precision has improved considerably than it had
been in the past, there are fewer mistakes, and better analytical quality all the way around.
It 's interesting hearing you talk about how those things have changed, sounded a little bit
like Pinto talking about going from when he came, he was doing everything with a slide rule
and all these complex calculations, and then he said when they found they could do it on the
computer, he said, "That 's fine by me. "
Yes. We are now able to just do so much more, and the analysts are so much more
productive -they can get more accomplished in less time; the lab staff likes that better; it's
not as tedious or trying on the nerves. The new technology has been welcomed. It's just a
new way of doing things without having to do as much thinking.
So have board members played a significant role in helping to move this along, or is it
unusual to find board members who really understand?
It's unusual to find board members that understand. SARA has always had some board
members that understood it takes money and the lab is not going to make money, but they've
always been in the minority. It has been difficult, but the board does realize if SARA does
not have a monitoring and testing program, it may give SARA a black eye. Who else is going
to do monitor the river if we don't? It had been difficult in the past, but now the board is
much more in tune with environmental concerns - I think in the ' 80s when SARA sued the
City of San Antonio for their lack of wastewater treatment, made the board wake up and
realize that SARA needed to be proactive and monitoring the river. It was the downstream
board members that really wanted to see something change. They also knew that it was
going to be a strong Environmental Department that was going to lead and effect that change.
10
You had mentioned that lawsuit, and I meant to ask you about that. Was SARA in with Texas
Department of Water Resources on that suit or how -
They joined SARA; SARA initiated the suit.
So what happened? What was the instigation for it?
Well, the way I understand it, the City of San Antonio was not doing a very good job of
treating their wastewater. Instead of upgrading the wastewater treatment plant, the City was
spending money providing the wastewater collection infrastructure to the developers, mostly
on the north side.
And the TCEQ was not putting them to task about cleaning up the wastewater treatment
facility. The city of San Antonio treatment facility was the old Rilling Road plant built in the
1930s as a WPA project. With the growth of the city, especially after World War II, the
plant could not handle all the waste. The wastewater was flowing into the plant, but not being
treated, the plant was just going through the motions of treating the waste water, and then
discharging out to the river. From the point there where the plant discharged into the river to
way down to below Falls City, the river was a dead zone, and there wasn't anything
swimming in it or living in it except for blood worms.
So SARA sued the City of San Antonio, the TDWRjoined in the lawsuit later. SARA and
the city settled the lawsuit. As a result the City built the Dos Rios plant, which is a state-of­the-
art facility, discharging an impeccable effluent, and the river is better than it has been.
Prior to 1987, the river was just terrible, but now it's a good, strong, viable river, with a real
good biotic integrity and fishery. I am real proud of the fact that we have improved the water
quality of the river and cleaned it up from Brackenridge Park all the way down to below
Goliad.
So what was the basis for the River Authority being able to sue the City?
Well, they weren't complying with their discharge permit.
I wonder why it wasn't the Corps, then, or ...
Corps of Engineers?
Yeah.
The Corps was not involved in water quality, back then.
So it 's the River Authority that -
Well, actually the Texas Department of Water Resources is the agency that should have been
putting the city of San Antonio to task, and they weren't enforcing their own regulations ..
'")()
We could have probably sued the TDWR for failing to do their jobs. But the City was not
doing its job either. Previous to SAWS the wastewater was under City Public Works, and
they just weren't doing their share to clean up the river or clean up their effluents, they were
discharging in violation of their TDWR permit and in violation of the State's stream
standards. The SARA board got fed up with it. Mr. Truett Hunt was very vocal about it and
felt that SARA needed to take action. So all the downstream board members voted for it and
reluctantly so did the Bexar County members.
I'm just making a note about Mr. Hunt because I'm going to be interviewing him, and I'll be
sure and ask him about that. In terms ofthe culture ofthe River Authority, you've seen some
big changes over 30 years.
26.
26 years. Can you sort of summarize what that's consisted op I mean, the managers have
had different styles of doing things and ...
Yes, they had different styles of managing, I've seen SARA change from an organization that
got by with what they could, to let's get the right staff with the right qualifications do the job.
We were - at one time just trying to recruit personnel with the minimum requirements they
needed to have to fill a position. Later management realized SARA needed a better quality
staff. So then the managers were allowed to actually raise the bar a little bit and get better
people. So we saw that change, I guess, towards the late ' 80s.
I believe that with some of these occurrences, like train derailments and suing the City and
then also with the catfish farm that was sucking up all the water, SARA realized the need for
a more professional staff. So over the years, we've seen a change in the kind of people that
SARA wants to hire. Previously it was just a matter of putting a job out there with a low
salary and hoping to get somebody that'll work cheap; now we do whatever it takes, let's get
the right people. That's one of the things that I've seen through the years is the quality of the
people that we look to hire.
What difference has having that tax money available made?
It's made a big difference. We've been able to expand our programs. We've been able to
grow our laboratory, grow our staff, and get fully engaged in a many programs. Before we
had the tax, SARA was limited to serve the four counties of the district, and that's pretty
much all we did. When we received the Clean Rivers program, we expanded to the natural
watershed a little bit, but we were not engaged in bay and estuary issues. We were not
engaged very much up in the Edwards Aquifer region either. With the implementation of the
tax we were able to expand what we were doing and provide a total package. So now we're
truly a regional entity, we serve beyond those four counties.
As an example, I'm engaged with the Edwards Aquifer Recovery Implementation Plan on the
scientific subcommittee, and most of that has to do with spring runs of the San Marcos and
Carnal Springs. But because we know so much more about the region the Sate has SARA to
'11
participate in those programs as well. If it wasn't for the tax money that was supporting
some of these extracurricular activities that the River Authority gets engaged with, we
wouldn't be involved as a regional entity.
The tax has allowed us to acquire new instrumentation on credit, now we can buy an
instrument on a lease/purchase plan, knowing that we have a funding source. The lab may
generate some revenues in the future, but in the meantime SARA can make those instrument
payments with tax money. The tax has allowed us some flexibility, it's made some changes.
We were also able to retain some of our best staff because they were not looking for jobs
somewhere else. The tax has allowed SARA to pay fair-market value for the staff. The tax
has brought some good changes.
So how large is your division now?
Twenty-three. Environmental Sciences is a department with 23. We are in the Technical
Services Division under Steve Raabe, and there are six departments. In Environmental
Sciences Department, we have our field operations, watershed monitoring and the laboratory.
Field operations are the personnel that actually go out and collect the water samples, collect
the fish and the benthic macro invertebrates. Those organisms are used to do an assessment
ofthe river. The laboratory staff! is 10 or 11 now. They process the water samples and
sediment samples that come into the laboratory from the field. The Environmental Sciences
Department also has an assessments and planning group that do the data management, quality
assurance/quality control, and the report preparation, report writing and research. Those are
the three sections within the department. Then I and the secretary do the administrative work.
Have you noticed any trends in terms of workload? I mean, how much is your work
dependent on the general vigor of the regional economy?
I don't think the economy affects our work. The work is necessary and has to get done. San
Antonio has not been hit hard by the lack of development as it would have up north, so the
developers are still building. I think San Antonio still has a robust economy. Except for the
gas going up, I think we've still got a very robust economy. Those developers are still
building. As they develop, somebody's got to treat and test that wastewater. People are still
drinking water, so we've got to test all that drinking water that people are using. As a result,
we are involved in developing new water management strategies in a holistic and regional
basis. The new strategies will require environmental assessments, monitoring and planning,
so we're still very busy.
I had proposed for the upcoming fiscal year 14 different projects that we could be funded by
our tax money. We're probably only going to do two of them. So the work is there, and the
reason we're not taking on more projects is because we don't have the staff to do them all. If
they would allow me to have the staff, we could take on more, but we just don't have enough
warm bodies to do all the work that needs to be done.
So I proposed the projects, and then during our budget-cutting process, I said, "Well, these
are all the new ESD projects," and I let management decide what they want ESD to do,
SARA couldn't afford them all. ESD needed additional staff just to keep up with the existing
projects and programs; I informed management that at minimum, we need to add one more
person in the laboratory. This year we're adding one person in the lab, we could probably
easily use two more in the lab and at least two more in the field to do some of the proposed
projects we would like to do.
The new projects are all components of developing information to make decisions for the
future. The projects and information is not critical that they have to be done right now, those
that we don't do this year, can be initiated next year as current projects are completed. There
is plenty of projects, studies and assessments waiting in the wings for us to do, so we're not
going to run out of work any time soon.
And these are - the ideas for them are generated within the Authority, or are they generated
because of demand .from potential clients or current clients coming to you?
Well, some are generated from within the Authority. Some are efforts that will generate data
we think we're going to need for the future; for example, we know that right now we' re
engaged in an in-stream flow project with the State.
What kind of project?
In stream flow; determining how much water a river needs to be viable. When I spoke about
reuse water a while ago, how much water do we have to keep in the San Antonio River to
keep it viable? What is the minimum amount of water flow the San Antonio River needs?
That is unknown at this time. We know how low the flow is now; it has been very low
before and risen back, but can it go much lower? The river may not be able to flow much
lower than it is now with out an environmental impact, so we need to know how much water
is actually required. We need to know what the environmental flow or in-stream flow needs
are for the San Antonio River. SARA will need to make that decision, so we need to come
up with that information.
One ofthe projects that we wanted to do that would complement the instream flow study
would be to recalibrate the fish community metrics that we use to determine ecosystem
health. Basically we have a method where we collect a sample of the fish community fish in
a certain area, enumerate those fish, and run them through a model and determine what the
different species are, what their trophic levels are, what the fish community composition is.
All ofthat information equates to a number, a range between zero and 60; zero is nothing's
alive and 60 you've got a pristine stream. The method gives a measure, a biotic indicator of
how healthy a river or stream may be.
Well, we've been doing that for over 20 years now with the same original metrics that I did
in my graduate work. We now have an extensive data base, what we are doing now is go
back to revisit and revise and verify that those metrics are accurate and if necessary make
adjustments to them. Re-calibration of metrics will complement how we monitor the river in
the future in regards to in-stream flows.
At the same time, we should also be evaluating SARA benthic macro invertebrate data,
which are the little critters, the bugs and insects in the stream. We should do that same
exercise with that database, but because of staff limitations and funding, that effort is being
put on the backburner, so that project will have to wait. That is just an example of the
projects or studies we could be doing, maybe should be doing, it'd be nice if we could, but
we at least have the fish and will use that as our main biotic indicator. If we ever want to re­visit
the benthics, we can re-examine that later on. It's something we could do another year
or two in the future. The data is there, it just needs to be thoroughly examined and evaluated.
So that gives you an idea of the kind of projects ESD can do and work towards.
What have you particularly enjoyed about working with the River Authority?
It's always changing and I haven't been bored. Like I said, early on I thought I would get
bored because I was only working in this watershed. Well, my work has taken me beyond
the watershed; I'm involved now with bay and estuary projects, Edwards Aquifer projects,
things at the Legislative level. I spent time in Austin working with various groups. SARA
has always been a place for me to grow and develop, and like I said it's always been
changing, it's always been evolving.
The ESD staff agrees with me, at least- the one thing that's been consistent here is that
we're consistently changing. That's one of the things that have kept it interesting for me. I
should have retired two years ago or could have retired two years ago; sometimes I think I
should have. But right about the time I thought "I've had enough, I want to retire," things
have changed and become more interesting, so I stuck around a little bit longer.
I get the sense from a lot of people that there's a real sort of culture of innovation in the
Authority.
Yes. We try to be progressive on what we do.
What do you think- where does that stem from? Was that the tone that was set 30 or 40
years ago and it 's just carried through?
Well, I'll put it this way: When I first came here, we had to be innovative just to hang on to
our jobs. We had to - in fact, like I mentioned, my graduate work had to do with developing
fish community composition metrics. What happened was back in the early ' 80s, a professor
by the name of Karr, a scientist, developed an index of biotic integrity for fish up in the
Midwest streams. EPA funded it, and it worked great, biologists were able to collect a group
of fish and based on that fish community composition, rate or classify, a stream as good, bad,
or excellent.
Well, I took that Midwestern methodology and adapted it to the San Antonio River and did
the research and came up with a new set of metrics and for the San Antonio River. ESD was
quick to adopt methodology; and the reason we started doing that was because we did not
have an AA, atomic absorption analyzer, we did not have an ICP, inductively coupled plasma,
or any other kind of instrument to aid in evaluating the impacts of pollution on the river. But
we could afford to go down to Wal-Mart, buy a seine and some rubber boots. With less than
$100 worth of equipment; we were out there- we sampled the fish community, enumerated
and classified them, and were able to rate the river ecology and tell the SARA Board "This is
how good the river is."
That is one example of how we were innovative. We had to do what we could with what
resources we had available. We could not buy back then what was a $75,000 instrument, but
we could go to Wal-Mart and buy a $20 seine, catch a bunch offish, and be able to tell our
board members, "This is how good the river is, this is how bad the river is, this is where the
river's getting better" just by how many fish we were collecting. We have been doing that
ever since. Even though we do now have an ICP and can do metals and other pollutants, we
still rely on the critters in the creek to tell us what's going on. So yes, we were innovative
and we continue to be. Years ago it was so we could basically keep our jobs, do some
studies, market our services, and offer challenges for the staff to grow.
As an example, when we only had one field biologist and one person in the lab. Well, that
field biologist needed somebody on the other end of the seine, so that created another job. So
all along ESD kept adding capabilities and growing.
We are now to the point where maintain a very sophisticated field staff, we purchased an
Electra fishing boat, we have backpack Electra fishers, we still use a seine, but we don't rely
just on the seine. We have canoes, and stream flow equipment that all goes out in the field,
we have a well equipped a van with everything needed there for field sampling. Jacques
Cousteau would be impressed with the equipment we have. ESD has grown and developed
the capability to use those instruments.
We have a RiverCat. It's an instrument we can drop in the river on one side, even if it's a
flood event, and with a tether pull it across the stream, and it collects the flow measurements,
and it tracks the bottom contour, velocities and downloads the data into the computer. In the
past we would have to stand out in the river with a measuring stick and mechanical flow
meter, and stopwatch listening on an earphone to a little propeller going around.
So now we have got some very sophisticated instrumentation, and we've had to be
innovative to develop those capabilities and demonstrate those needs. Fifteen or twenty
years ago, it was a matter of need; now it's more a matter of- what's the word I want to use?
Expectation; we want to demonstrate that ESD is proactive and progressive. Back then we
had to do it to hang on to our jobs, now we do it because it's expected of us.
It sounds as if you were trying to catch up or just keep up before and now you 're a little
ahead of the ...
Yes. We are out in front, and we try to get the new toys before the other agencies do. That is
how we try to operate now.
I was thinking the amount of technology that you 've had to learn about and become familiar
with, I mean, is there ever a point at which you just say, "Oh, I'm just going to let those
younger guys deal with it"?
I do that now, I'm already doing that. (Laughing.) I don't know how to work that RiverCat.
We've got some of those stream flow instruments that I don't know how to work because
I've been promoted beyond a scientist; I'm a bureaucrat now. I don' t get to do fieldwork
anymore. Last time I went out in the field, I was injured, so I told the staff not to expect
much field help from me in the future
My career is based on my ability to do fieldwork and know the names of all the fishes and all
the critters, but it got to the point where I felt I could do more for the environment by being
promoted. As a manager I can secure funding, land contracts and direct the work efforts that
will have an environmental benefit. It's been a challenge and a lot of fun at the same time. It
still is. My wife keeps asking me about retirement, I say, "No, not yet. I'm having too much
fun." SARA is getting involved with other things that are very interesting.
(Recording turned off and turned back on.)
Is there some way that you-all are involved in the Parks and Recreation activities of the
Authority?
Parks and Rec activities, well, we do the monitoring and testing for that river rec website that
I told you about. We have the information posted for the public; ESD will do that. We at
one time were testing the water and the fish tissue for Braunig and Calaveras Lakes, but we
don't do that anymore. City Public Service does that, it's their lake, they're doing that now,
so we're no longer involved with that. We do assist -let me think. Well, we assist
Community Relations sometimes with promoting environmental awareness, conservation and
supporting an urban fishery. But we really don' t do much more than that as far as Parks and
Rec goes. We'll give them information, pictures offish or information about fish from time
to time, provide some resources for them to use, but now, they have a pretty sophisticated
staff to do that type of thing, ESD will get involved on an as-need basis.
And what about back in the earlier '80s, the SCS floodwater retention dams, were you
involved in any of that?
No, no.
I guess you wouldn 't have been involved in the planning, but the follow-up because ...
We had gone out to a couple of the dam structures and conducted surveys on the water
behind them to see if there was viable fishery or not or had the potential to be a viable fishery,
but we did very little, nothing significant.
What about the - there was a Xeriscape project?
Yes, that was pretty much with Parks and Rec and Dam Maintenance. Jim Blair was the
Manager of those efforts, but, no, we didn't get involved.
Okay. And then what about environmental issues as it pertained to McAllister Park?
We did some studies in the park, groundwater and water quality studies, in advance of the
dam construction in conjunction with the SCS, Soil Conservation Service, and the US
Geological Survey. Basically we deployed data recorders and some data sondes in the park.
We collected water quality samples and had those tested and provided the information back
to the engineers at the time and the SCS so they could make their decisions. But we didn't
do anything other than that.
And do you do anything in terms of Olmos Dam and the floodplain there?
No. Back in those days, that was all done by consultants, so we did not get involved in any
of the environmental overview or reviews or any of those types of things.
And there 's nothing that's ongoing as it pertains to the Olmos Basin?
No.
Why is that?
Well, the Olmos basin was built out, so there's -
But you wouldn't be doing any monitoring when there are flood events behind the dam?
No, not storm events, but we do have monitoring programs that take into account the San
Antonio River. Mostly what we're looking at are what they call State designated stream
segments, and all those are in perennial running streams. Behind Olmos Dam is dry most of
the time, so no. We do have a couple of storm water programs where we're looking at storm
water in conjunction with the City of San Antonio and Bexar County and we have a site that
we operate for TxDOT out on Ingram Road. We're not the only people that monitor, so there
are programs that we work with in conjunction with other collaborators, City of San Antonio,
Bexar County, TxDOT, San Antonio Water System, there's a network through out the basin,
so we support those programs as well. There is testing going on for storm events, but it's not
all just SARA, so we support some storm water monitoring.
I see the word collaboration used increasingly after about 2000, it seems to be a major
emphasis.
Well, the lawyers told us not to use partner anymore.
Why? (Laughing.)
Some legality. If they're a partner, they're supposed to get some sort of the cut of the profits
or something or another. So the proper term is collaborators.
Okay. I think what I 'm getting at is I get the sense that there's a lot more working with other
groups now than there ever was before.
Yes. Well, there used to be a lot of overlap, duplication of efforts, but that changed with the
Bexar Regional Watershed Management Program, we're collaborating, and pooling
resources and then divvying up the work to make sure funds are used efficiently. After the
floods of '98 and 2000, the community realized that the county and the city, SARA, and
SAWS are doing many of the same things; we didn't need to be doing the same things at the
same places. What the BRWM program organized was the pooling of resources and then
divvy up the work in a more equitable fashion to get maximum benefit among agencies. We
are not only organized in Bexar County, but under the Clean Rivers Program, we are
organized across the watershed. We want to make sure that we get all the potential
collaborators and stakeholders to the table and make sure that we're maximizing the use of
public funds. Consolidation of work, collaborating and leveraging has been a priority.
Well, are there any other topics that we should have talked about that come to mind?
I can't think of anything. We talked about our monitoring programs. We talked about our
laboratory instrumentation, field equipment, projects and programs. I can't think of anything
that we didn't already touch on.
(End of interview.)
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